


Old Clothing

by AstroGirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossdressing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 16:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Severus Snape was young, he wore his mother's clothes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Clothing

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Trope Bingo, for the prompt "crossdressing." Apparently I am incapable of writing this trope as kink, or crack, or fluff.

When Severus Snape was young, just an ordinary boy living among Muggles in Spinner's End, he wore his mother's clothes. 

Not all of them, of course, and not all the time. But when there's no money to keep a growing boy in shirts, when his father's things are not to be touched, and when the magic that might have altered things into something more suitable is strictly forbidden... well. ("I think your father can _smell_ magic," she said to him once, pulling a faded pink blouse over his head. She'd meant it for an apology, but he'd taken it literally, believed it was some Muggle power his father had in place of magic itself. Later, when he went creeping off to do charms with Lily, he'd come home and wash himself afterwards, trying to scrub away the scent of what he'd done, or what he was. Of all the bitter memories of his childhood, that one somehow still has the power to make his gut clench, even now.)

"Well," his mother had said, smoothing fabric down against his skin, "a shirt's a shirt. It will cover a boy as well as a girl." And, in truth, he hadn't minded. More than that, he'd _liked_ it. Her old blouses, worn soft and thin, did more than cover him. They comforted him. Wearing them was like having her close, even when he was alone. It was like being dressed in the knowledge that someone cared for him, at least enough to give him something of hers to put between himself and the rest of the world.

Of course, it wasn't long before the other children made it clear to him -- very, very clear -- that such attire was unacceptable. _Contemptible._ The day he came home with angry tears in his eyes and declared that he would go naked before he'd wear her clothes again, he'd expected a fight, but she'd only nodded quietly and agreed. The next day she'd stolen money from his Da and used it to buy him shirts. She'd caught hell for it, but Severus had pretended not to care, and that had been the end of it.

Except that it wasn't, quite. Because even now, with Spinner's End twenty years behind him, on nights when memories clamor too loudly in his mind and this life he's living seems too much like a bad joke, he'll sometimes find himself with his wand in his hand and his lips moving in a familiar set of transfigurations, until his clothing shifts and changes, becomes a woman's blouse with a hint of ruffle, oversized to fit on him as his mother's once did on his child's body. It's bloody stupid, and he knows it. But at least, afterwards, he can sleep.

Children never change, though. They're the same as when he was a boy, the same as they always will be. He hears them talking and laughing, barely caring whether he is out of earshot, no matter how many points he takes from them. The incident of the Longbottom boy's boggart is far too delightful to them: big, scary Potions Master Snape, made ridiculous, made _pathetic_ , in women's clothes.

After that, when he stands before his mirror, alone in his room, and performs the transfiguration, nothing changes except his clothing, and it only makes him look ludicrous and weak. With the memory of mocking laughter, old and new, ringing in his ears, he thwacks his wand angrily against the cloth, and brings back his own bleak, black attire. It looks right on him. How could he have thought anything else would?

And if there is one less comfort in his life, well, he can get used to that. He always does, doesn't he.


End file.
